The Ginetta Sagan Fund
Committee Members
Julianne Cartwright Traylor, Co-Chair, is a political scientist, lecturer, researcher, consultant and non-governmental organization representative/activist in the field of International Human Rights Law and Policy with a focus on the United Nations, Gender and Development Issues, and the Realization of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. She is a founding member and currently serves as President of the Board of Directors of Human Rights Advocates, an international NGO with consultative status at the United Nations, and has represented the organization at international meetings such as the UN Fourth World Conference on Women convened in Beijing, China in 1995, and the World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa in 2001. Among her other human rights activities, she is also currently the convenor of the Human Rights Task Force of the California Women’s Agenda, a state-wide action alliance of over 600 organizations working to implement the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. She does trainings and public education on issues such as the International Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and Violence against Women. She has served as a former Chairperson of the AIUSA Board Directors and has worked on many human rights issues for AIUSA such as on women’s rights. She has lived and worked abroad twice and has travelled extensively in Africa, Asia, Mexico and Brazil, and Europe (West, North, South and East). She was privileged and honored to know Ginetta and has been a member of the GSF Committee for almost a decade.
Andrea Damesyn Claburn, Co-Chair has been a member of the Ginetta Sagan Fund Steering committee for eight years and is currently Co-Chair of the Fund. She began her association with Ginetta Sagan when she collaborated with Mrs. Sagan on Violations of Human Rights in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam April 1975-December 1988, an exhaustive study of systematic human rights abuses perpetrated in Vietnam since the fall of Saigon, published in 1989. An active member of Amnesty International USA since 1990, Ms. Claburn also serves on the board of the Aurora Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to improved observance of human rights throughout the world. Andrea Damesyn Claburn worked as a unit manager and associate producer in the TV Production division at PBS affiliate KQED in San Francisco for ten years and is currently freelance specializing in documentary and live television production.
Erin Callahan, Staff Liaison, is Amnesty International’s Regional Director for the Western United States, and previously managed media relations for Amnesty International, USA. She has twelve years of experience with US presidential campaigns, serving as communications director in Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio and California. She also served as Communications Director for U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski and as Emergency Services Manager for Alameda County Sheriff’s Department. In addition, she was a lecturer at Cornell University, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, conducted political seminars for the National Democratic Institute’s Eastern European delegations, was a policy advisor for Mexico City based Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Center for Human Rights, and produced a radio series on youth culture in Israel and Palestine for National Public Radio. She is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley and has a master’s degree in broadcast journalism
Ana Sagan, granddaughter of Ginetta Sagan.
Jire’ M. Ozer was born and raised in the east part of Turkey of a Kurdish parents. After earning her BA and MA in Business Administration & Management in Turkey, she moved to the Bay Area (USA) where she continued her education at the English Center for International Women (ECIW) at Mills College in 1996. Jire’ received a Master of Arts degree in International Relations from Golden Gate University, San Francisco in 2001. Her association with Amnesty International began in 2000 when she did her internship in the San Francisco Office of AIUSA. She then worked as a volunteer for the National Refugee Office. During the 2002 Ginetta Sagan Fund Award nomination and reunion event, she worked as staff member. She is currently working as a Paralegal for an Immigration Law Firm. Jire’ speaks Kurdish, Turkish and English.
Castle Redmond graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a Bachelors Degree in History in 1994. He earned his JD from the Georgetown University Law Center in 2003. Castle has always had a passion for the issues of human rights and children’s rights. He has worked with at-risk youth in many different capacities in California and Washington, DC for the last 10 years. Currently, Castle teaches high school in the Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, CA. He has been a member of the Ginetta Sagan Fund, Steering Committee since 2003.
Shirley D’Andrea is a native Californian who has been involved with Amnesty International since 1969 and was a charter member of Group19, the first in California, started by Ginetta Sagan who was her next door neighbor and life long friend. Ms. D'Andrea completed her B.A.at Swasrthmore College, earned a M.S.Ed at University of Pennsylvania and an M.A. in Counseling Psychology at University of Santa Clara. She recently retired from a thirty year career as a Family Therapist. She and her late husband raised four children, and have six grandchildren. She is currently beginning another career in the arts. She has been a member of the Ginetta Sagan Fund Steering Committee since 1997. She is Executive director of the Aurora Foundation, a small Human Rights group founded by Ginetta Sagan in the 70s.
Locsi Ferra has been involved with Amnesty International for 6 years beginning as a volunteer turned staff member working with various international human rights campaigns involving the abolition of torture, refugee rights, the elimination of discrimination, Stop Violence Against Women and the Campaign for Justice for the Women of Juarez. She has also worked with La Casa de Las Madres in San Francisco as a Bi-Lingual Outreach Associate serving and educating the community on the issues of domestic violence and gender-based violence. She holds BA in International Relations from San Francisco State University and currently serves as National Outreach Coordinator for the Independent Television Service working with independent films to raise awareness and community engagement on diverse issues. Locsi Ferra has been a committee member for the Ginetta Sagan Fund since 2003.
Edith Gelles has served on the Ginetta Sagan Committee since 2000. A long-time member of Amnesty International, Dr. Gelles, a historian and senior scholar at Stanford University's Institute for Research on Women and Gender, worked with Ginetta Sagan for many years. They met in the early-1980s at the Institute, where Ginetta was then a visiting scholar, and collaborated as colleagues and friends on issues relating to women and war.
Lea Redmond graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a Bachelor's Degree in Social Science in 1991. She earned a Master's Degree in Education from Stanford University in 1995 before returning to the University of California at Berkeley to pursue a her doctorate in African American Studies/African Diaspora Studies in 1997. In addition to teaching undergraduate courses at the University of California at Berkeley, Lea has taught overseas in Zimbabwe, Barbados and Cuba with their Study Abroad Program. Currently, she is a Recruiter with University Relations at Apple. Lea first worked as an intern with the Western Regional Office of AIUSA in college and worked as a Fundraising Consultant for the Ginetta Sagan Fund before becoming a member of the Steering Committee in 2002.
Moira DeNike, Ph.D. traveled to Togo when she was 20 years old to conduct a study on family planning and the status of women in that small West African country – an experience that launched her abiding interest in human rights. This interest motivated her work for the Center for Law and Global Justice at the University of San Francisco School of Law, where she served as Assistant Director, overseeing legal education and infrastructure development programs in Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia. She also served as treasurer for United Cambodian Community Foundation, a small community organization that provides loans and vocational training to landmine survivors in Cambodia. Moira sits on the Advisory Board for Community Educational Services, a San Francisco nonprofit providing educational and personal support for youth and children in the public schools. Her current work as a planning and evaluation consultant focuses on the rights of U.S. prisoners, juvenile offenders and the mentally ill. This is her first year on the Ginetta Sagan Fund.
Chivy Sok is an advocate for international human rights, is dedicated to the advancement of peace and social justice. Currently, she is working on projects to advance understanding about child labor and human rights through public education and training. An educator, researcher, and trainer, Sok has successfully implemented large and small-scale projects related to international human rights, child labor, and the Cambodian genocide. Most recently, she served as the former Deputy Director of the University of Iowa Center for Human rights and also the Center's Project Director of a multi-faceted global child labor initiative. Based in the Bay Area, Sok continues to do consulting work and conduct public lectures on a variety of human rights issues. She is a graduate of the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs and the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Honorary Members:
Cosette Thompson
Nancy Flowers
Charles Henry
Terry McCaffrey